This page has been created to outline the community standards on our city council corporate social media pages.
The Stoke-on-Trent City Council social media pages have been created to provide a factual information point for the residents of Stoke-on-Trent and the wider community. Information posted to these pages will be provided from trusted sources.
Our aim is to create a page where residents can discuss current affairs, engage in community chat, keep up to date with events in the local area, tips and recommendations and any day to day helpful advice.
The majority of our community who engage with us are kind, generous and care about their community. We encourage debates and conversation on a range of topics. Differing opinions are welcomed by we ask all residents to be polite and respectful in any of our discussions.
Monitoring
Our social media accounts are monitored during office hours Monday to Friday. Due to the number of requests we receive, please bear with us. However, if your enquiry is urgent, please contact us via Stoke on Call 01782 234234 or complete a customer feedback form to comment on one of our services.
Moderation
We welcome and encourage debates and conversation within our pages (even if this is criticism). However, the following behaviour will not be tolerated on any post/tweet …
- Swearing
- Posting the same message or similar on several posts
- Advertising products or services
- Discussion of personal information (contact details etc)
- Impersonating someone else.
We reserve the right to remove, challenge or report any of the above behaviour that does not follow the above community standards. As we receive a numerous comments and messages, we urge residents to bring these to our attention so we can investigate further.
All residents must adhere to the community standards. For these instances the city council have implemented a warning system based on the severity of the comments or message. The traffic light system is as follows…
Green – First warning. Resident will be contacted to reiterate the community standards that are in place.
Amber – Second warning. Another warning issues and comments are likely to be hidden or removed.
Red – Third offence. Resident will be blocked.
Whilst the city council is committed to allowing freedom of expression we will not tolerate offensive or abusive behaviour or language or comments that are harmful or threatening and in these instances the poster may be immediately blocked.
Liking and following
We cannot follow and like all pages or posts as demand is so high so please do not be offended is this happens. The authority is likely to only follow or like people who provide information that is pertinent to our work (UK Government, local media, and our public sector partners).
It is important to remember that while we may like or follow someone, retweet or share their content/information, it does not mean that we endorse them.
Sharing and Retweeting
We try and share or retweet information that we think may be of interest to you or local businesses in Stoke-on-Trent. However, please don’t be offended if we don’t retweet or share something you want us to.
Pre-election period
The council itself, as opposed to its political administration, must be politically neutral in its communications. Therefore, please do not use any of our social media pages to promote party political messages or other content.
The council will remove any comments that they feel compromise its obligation to maintain politically neutrality.
Disinformation
We will challenge any information that is shared or posted to our social media channels that provides misinformation. The city council reserves the rights to challenge, intervene and correct should the wrong information be shared amongst residents.
With regards to disinformation, we will refer back to our traffic light system and residents will be given a number of warnings before being blocked from our channels.